Centre rules out talks with Hizbul Mujahideen

Centre on Tuesday ruled out talks with pro-Pakistan militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen and said the task of initiating a dialogue with all groups in Jammu and Kashmir is being entrusted to Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission K C Pant.

"We will hold talks with all parties in Jammu, Ladakh and the Kashmir Valley soon," Union Home Minister L K Advani said in New Delhi.

He replied in the negative when asked whether there was any possibility of talking to Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen.

Advani said that Pant would be government's representative during the dialogue.

Asked how soon the talks would begin, Advani said the modalities of the dialogue process were being worked out.

Pant, who has decades of administrative and political experience, has served as defence minister and minister of state for home during the Congress regime.

Advani has stated that the talks could possibly begin in May with Kashmiri groups in India but ruled out a dialogue with Pakistan now.

"We have already decided who will hold talks and how to proceed with it. But peace talks would be with groups in India," he told Karan Thapar on BBC's Hardtalk India programme.

Advani has made it clear that 'we do not propose at the moment to hold talks with Pakistan'.

He said, "I would certainly be monitoring the course of the talks, but the actual talks may be conducted by others."

To a question if the government is determined to proceed with the peace process in J&K, Advani said, "The government will pursue the peace process in Kashmir. This has already been decided."

Government had extended in February the ceasefire in J&K by three months till May-end with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee expressing the Centre's readiness to initiate talks with various militant groups, which abjure violence.

"We will not let this (peace) process be derailed, diluted or misused," Vajpayee had told the Lok Sabha on February 22 while announcing the third extension of the ceasefire.